Chapter Text
“Your usual order?”
“Eh, let’s spice it up a bit for today. Got any rarity cuts I can maybe experiment with?”
The butcher perks up at the question, seizing the opportunity in a heartbeat. “Oh! You know what, I got this unique dragon’s hind from the adventurer’s guild. Usually I’ll sell it for a premium 50 gold but for you I can do with 30.”
“30?” The customer chuckles. “Why, what a steal! What’s the catch? Is it like… spoiled or something?”
“The catch is that there’s no catch,” With a swift motion, the butcher readies the lizard hind and packs it all up nicely. “Enjoy your premium! Consider this thanks for… you know,”
“Seriously,” The customer’s voice grows sullen, disappointed, almost. “I’m just some ordinary gal. No need to give me any special treatment, I swear,”
The butcher replies with a heart laugh. “Bahaha, so humble! Really, it’s my pleasure doing business with you! Now take your spoils and go, I heard the baker is running low on that special loaf you really enjoy so you better get going!”
With a pointed turn of her heel, Mumei drops the butcher 40 pieces of gold before heading to the aforementioned bakery.
Market days are among Mumei’s favorite days. The streets are crowded, but everyone is so preoccupied with whatever task they have running that most of them stick to minding their own businesses. This leads to the perfect harmony of having just enough people for her to simmer being within a crowd, but not so much that they would dare bother her.
Not that any of them ever dares.
“Ma’am, let me carry your bag for you,” The carriage driver offers to Mumei as she gets into her ride home.
“Ah no, I’ll be fine,” Mumei politely declines, tightening her grip on her bag. “It’s quite a mess, I can handle this myself. Thank you for the offer though,”.
As always, Mumei sat at the farthest back of the carriage. She was usually the last to leave, considering how her home is by the end of the usual travel paths of the carriages, the farthest from the capitol.
“Same time, same place two weeks from now?” The carriage river asks, ever-so familiar with Mumei’s schedule.
“Of course, thank you so much,”.
Mumei lived the farthest from the capitol, just around the border of the forest under the empire’s jurisdiction. She considered herself a hermit at this rate, spending most of her days surrounded by nature. The only times she’d reintegrate into society is during her personal market days, as societies’ delicacies proved too tempting for her to resist.
The rustling of leaves is a usual company during Mumei’s trek home. It was comforting even, the familiar sensation of fallen leaves crunching beneath her feet a much more soothing sensation compared to the cobbled walkways of the capitol.
Her shelter was built far deep inside the forest, the only marks of any human being the slightly faded path of grass leading deep into her abode. Mumei insisted it be so in order for her to be connected to nature, a notion no one in her nation questions. It has been a couple of years since she has adapted to this new place and yet the sights and experiences of her solidarity will always prove to be refreshing in her eyes.
Solidarity, to put things literally. To Mumei, so long as she is with nature, she is never alone.
Who wouldn’t find such a lifestyle ideal, though? Being awoken by the sunlight peeking through her windows, the humming and rustling of the birds, the refreshing scent of the nearby forest washing by her backyard. Mumei would sometimes even get into bragging arguments with the birds, Mumei showing off some of her prized feathers much to the jealousy of her forest friends.
Bliss, Mumei thinks to herself. Her life truly is blissful.
What isn’t blissful is the sight of her supposedly padlocked door wide open.
Pursing her lips, Mumei gently sets down her bag by the doorside, tip-toe-ing as she cautiously enters her own home. She swears she locked it before she left, a quick pat down her pockets confirming that her keys were indeed there. Mumei turns her attention to her door, the hinge was surprisingly intact but the padlock was missing. There doesn’t seem to be any marks of brute force, though.
“Odd,” Mumei whispers to herself, cautious to maintain a low profile.
Freeing herself from her carriables, Mumei draws her dagger, shifting her grip on it as she slowly inspects her house. Slowly, Mumei made her way around her house, first the living room, then the kitchen, even the pantry and the bathroom. Apart from all the doors being open, to her surprise nothing else was amiss.
Nothing.
This leads Mumei to the stairs, meaning the perpetrator must be upstairs. To Mumei that is good, if she caught the perpetrator while they are upstairs, she can quickly bar their escape.
Footsteps light as ever, Mumei slowly tiptoed until she made her way to the second floor. There are only two doors, and the only one that was open was her bedroom door.
Which Mumei is sure as hell that she closed before leaving.
Mumei remained hidden as she quietly inspected her bedroom. True enough, there was a humanoid figure inside. The figure’s back was turned to the door, they appear to be inspecting something. Maybe they were trying to rob Mumei of the artifacts she won from the war. How would they even know where Mumei lived?
In one breath, Mumei lunged at the figure with her dagger.
“Holy Ceres–” The figure cried out, unable to fight back against Mumei as she swiftly knocked them down and pinned them against the ground with her weight.
“What are you doing here? Explain yourself quickly,” With a pointed hiss, Mumei presses her dagger against the stranger’s throat, her knee pressed against the stranger’s chest to pin them down.
“Woah, you actually have wings,”
Mumei locks eye contact with the stranger underneath her. Blue hair with even more blue eyes, a nicked eyebrow, rather handsome she’s willing to admit. What was odd for Mumei was that lingering sense of familiarity, Mumei swears she’s seen this stranger before.
“What are you doing here?” Mumei repeats her question, pressing the blunt side of the dagger harder against the stranger’s throat, her wings further fluffing up as a show of aggression.
“Ouro! House Ouro!”
With the stranger’s squawks, Mumei relinquishes her grip over the stranger, though withdrawing the knife but she still keeps a knee over her.
“The Emperor’s– wait, no?” Mumei interrupts her own sentence as a familiar glint catches her eye, an iconic emblem that she would never forget. A jewel of blue encrusted in a heart-shaped trim of gold.
“You’re the current emperor, aren’t you?” Mumei continues, embellishing her dagger over the jewel, poking and prodding at it with the dull side of her blade.
“Yes!” The stranger gawks. “Emperor Ouro Kronii, of the Council Empire. Now would you please let me go?”
“Just because you’re the emperor doesn’t mean I will let you easily go for robbery,”
“Alleged robbery,” Kronii nervously coughs. “I came to talk,”
Mumei narrows her eyes at this. “Really now?”
“Pinky promise!”
With that, Mumei lets Kronii go, not without discreetly shoving her just a bit.
“You left your house open,” Kronii says, brushing dust off her shoulders as she regains her bearings.
“Keep lying and I will eventually be charged for alleged murder of the royal throne at this rate,” Mumei rolls her eyes.
To Mumei’s surprise, Kronii places something in Mumei’s palm. “I found this lying by the rug outside your house. You might’ve forgotten to properly clasp it over the hinge,”
It was the padlock to her humble abode. To further Mumei’s confusion, the padlock was indeed locked. It seems that, in Mumei’s hurry, she forgot to properly loop the padlock through the hinges of the door.
“Could you at least have closed the doors behind you?” Mumei replied with a growl, a sense of pride refusing to admit fault. “You rummaged through everything on the first floor and if I arrived much later I’m betting you would’ve gone through everything on this floor as well,”
Mumei’s nagging was met by silence, and the shy fidgeting of the emperor. Mumei took one more good look at the figure before her, blue hair, blue eyes, very tall. She certainly is a descendant of the house she once served.
“Old man Krono died at last?” Mumei asks, sitting down on her chair quite tiredly.
“Yeah,” Kronii replied, a mild fidget in her voice. “Not too shortly after you left, actually,"
Mumei purses her lips at this. Apologetically. She swears.
“So quite some time now, huh,” Mumei was conscious about how much remorse she showed in her voice.
“Mhm,” Kronii nods. “My apologies for my rudeness,”
“Yeah, you better be sorry,”
“Really, I didn’t expect you to actually have wings,” Kronii continues in a direction Mumei didn't expect. “I thought it was just a metaphor or an exaggeration on your imagery and stuff. Didn’t expect it to be literal, my bad.”
The grip on her dagger suddenly tightened once more. “You know, something about the way you talk is convincing me that you’re not actually sorry,”
“I am, I swear!” Kronii squeaks once more. “And I’m actually here to talk,”
“To ask me something?” Mumei corrects. “Again, make it quick,”
To Mumei’s amusement, the emperor Kronii swallows a nervous lump on her throat, her keen eyes not missing the way the emperor’s gloved hands fidgeted by her side.
“I… ahm.” The emperor clears her throat as she speaks, her palm outstretched before her in a seeming salute. In a swift flurry, a spear manifests on the palms of Kronii.
“Ahem,” Kronii begins, the resounding click of the spear against her floor a somewhat indicator of the return of Kronii’s confidence. “By the power vested in me, I command you to return to your position in the court as the high mage,”
The way Mumei’s feathers were ruffled– literally so – was a bad indication for the emperor.
“Well,” Mumei began, her voice deceitfully calm. “I would’ve been naive to expect something good will come out of a sudden visit from the emperor,”
“My apologies,” Kronii continued– Mumei quite impressed with the way Kronii stood her brevity, her initial dorky facade fully fading away. “I know this seems too sudden, but the situation at hand leaves me no choice but to ask you–”
“And what might this dire situation be?” Mumei raises her voice ever so slightly. “Why are my services required– why me specifically?”
“It’s our Goddess,” Kronii was quick and curt with her reply. “Goddess Ceres is under harm by the rebels of the God of Chaos.”
Kronii holds her breath in anticipation of the great mage’s reply. If memory serves her well, she has uttered the proper words to be able to convince her to join her cause. Nanashi Mumei, the high mage, the warrior who has crippled armies by the flick of her wrist.
All done in the great name of their almighty Goddess Ceres.
“I can protect and serve our Goddess on my own,”.
“What?” To say that Kronii was baffled by the reply was an overstatement. “Pardon me, are you refusing my order?”.
“By the power vested in me, hell to the living hells no,” Mumei holds a hand (a finger, really) up at the emperor. Kronii scoffs, now she was just being unnecessarily rude.
A strong wind shakes through the entire room as Kronii swings her spear towards Mumei, only stopping by the millimeter as the blade rested rather comfortably beside the skin of the latter’s neck. “You cannot refuse,”
“I refuse,”
“You can’t,”
“And if I do?”
To Mumei’s surprise, Kronii throws what appears to be a speck of crystal towards her. Mumei stands her ground though, watching as the shard simply hangs in the air, paused mid-flight.
“I’ll make you,”